Whooping Cranes Not Hatching

  • One of the goals of the Partnership is to get more cranes to raise young in the wild, but so far, only one crane chick has been successfully hatched and gone on to migrating. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Wildlife experts are trying to bring back a flock of migrating whooping
cranes in the eastern United States. But there’s a problem. Scientists are
having trouble getting the whoopers to hatch chicks in the wild. Chuck
Quirmbach reports – researchers are taking a closer look at the ten-year-old
rehabilitation effort:

Transcript

Wildlife experts are trying to bring back a flock of migrating whooping
cranes in the eastern United States. But there’s a problem. Scientists are
having trouble getting the whoopers to hatch chicks in the wild. Chuck
Quirmbach reports – researchers are taking a closer look at the ten-year-old
rehabilitation effort:

It’s not easy to get whooping cranes to reproduce, but here in Baraboo,
Wisconsin, researchers have had success at getting captive cranes to produce
chicks.

For the last ten years, the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership has created a
flock of more than 100 whoopers. Researchers hatched the birds
– and trained them to migrate by flying behind ultralight aircraft ….or to
follow adult cranes. The birds now fly between the upper Midwest and
southeastern U.S.

But one of the goals of the Partnership is to get more cranes to raise young
in the wild. So far, only one crane chick has been successfully hatched and
gone on to migrating.

Jeb Barzen is with the International Crane Foundation. He says they can’t
keep supplying the flock with chicks hatched in captivity:

“It’s expensive. it’s expensive in time, expensive in money…expensive in overall conservation effort, because what you put into whooping crane reintroduction you can’t put into other conservation projects at that time. so to be fully successful …you want that population to be
able to survive on it’s own.”

So far, about 16 million dollars has gone into re-introducing whoopers to
the eastern u.s. More than half of that money came from private donors.

The birds’ main summer home is here at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge
in Wisconsin.

It’s not that the cranes don’t get close to each other. If you watch the cranes here, you can spot single cranes and the occasional couple.

Jeb Barzen pauses to watch two tall white cranes having a territorial dispute:

“Ooh! these birds are threatening each other. that’s a preen behind the wing
threat…that the second bird is doing…so these are not birds of the same
pair.”

Researchers don’t know why the birds are not raising more wild chicks. But
they do have some theories. Even when cranes do make nice and produce an
egg – the relatively young cranes may be too inexperienced to be patient
parents. Black flies may drive the birds off their nest. Or the parents
may be low on body fat and take off to find food.

The crane researchers are gathering data to find out what cranes need for a
successful nesting site. They’re using tracking radios to follow some of the
birds.

Anne Lacy is with the International Crane Foundation. Today she’s driving
around southern Wisconsin listening for the whoopers.

“it’s important to look at what choices they make as a young bird
before they breed…to know how they choose those areas….they need for
water for roosting at night…they need that eventually for nesting.”

This kind of research is being ramped up this spring. That’s because an
independent report raised some concerns about the crane recovery effort.
The report was done by consultants hired by the Whooping Crane Eastern
Partnership. It mentions problems with financial oversight, scientific
coordination, and whether the birds’ main summer home – at the Necedah
wildlife refuge – is the best place for them.

Louise Clemency is with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. And
she is a co-chair of the eastern partnership. She says the crane recovery
effort won’t make any big changes overnight.

“We’re trying to the time to draw the right conclusions so we can
take the right next step.”

Clemency says decisions on the whooping crane experiment could come next
year. In the meantime..she hopes that some crane eggs laid this spring at
the Necedah refuge will hatch.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Whooping Cranes’ Poor Parenting

  • Whooping cranes have been abandoning their nests, and eggs, in search of food (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

The experiment to create a migrating flock
of whooping cranes in the Eastern US is having a
parenting problem. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

The experiment to create a migrating flock
of whooping cranes in the Eastern US is having a
parenting problem. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

About 70 whooping cranes now migrate between the Southeast US and the Midwest.
Wildlife experts have been hoping that more pairs of the birds would start hatching eggs
and raising chicks in the wild.

This spring, at their northern home in Wisconsin, several female cranes did lay eggs and
sat on the nests during cold weather. But when it warmed up, the adult birds abandoned
their nests to look for food.

George Archibald is co-founder of the International Crane Foundation.

“If there is a food stress, when it becomes warmer their drive to feed may increase much
more than when it’s cold.”

Some of the crane eggs were saved and hatched out by wildlife centers.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Tracking Water Withdrawals

Water use in the Great Lakes basin hasn’t changed much
in recent years, according to a new report. The Great Lakes Regional Water Use Database tracks how water is used throughout the basin. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Water use in the Great Lakes basin hasn’t changed much in recent years, according to a
new report. The Great Lakes Regional Water Use Database tracks how water is used
throughout the basin. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


The database includes water use information from the eight Great Lakes states and two
Canadian provinces. It shows that total water withdrawals for the year 2002 were
about 43 billion gallons a day. That number does not include water used for
hydroelectric power. Most of that water is returned to the basin.


Thomas Crane is interim executive director of the Great Lakes Commission, which
compiled the database. He says over the past few years, Great Lakes water use has
remained fairly steady.


“The fact that water use is not increasing significantly over time, at least in terms of what
we’re seeing with the database, I think speaks to the fact that we’re probably seeing more water
conservation.”


The database outlines water use by state and by industry, including municipal water
systems, agricultural irrigation, manufacturing and mining.


For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links

Musicians Tap Region’s Treasures

  • The Great Lakes Myth Society's songs cover all aspects of living in the Great Lakes region. (Photo courtesy of the Great Lakes Myth Society)

The Great Lakes Myth Society is a rock band with a clear sense of place. As
you might expect from their name, the band’s debut album is full of songs
about Great Lakes folklore. But their music is also infused with a subtle
appreciation for Great Lakes nature as well. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Dustin Dwyer has more:

Transcript

The Great Lakes Myth Society is a rock band with a clear sense of place. As you might expect from their name, the band’s debut album is full of songs about Great Lakes folklore. But their music is also infused with a subtle appreciation for Great Lakes nature as well. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dustin Dwyer has more:


James and Timothy Monger grew up in what they call the “former small town of Brighton, Michigan.” While strip malls and fast-food joints sprung up around them, the brothers held on to a sense of respect for the natural world.


“We were taught when you drive down the road with your parents, and you see a bunch of cranes, you stop, and you look at them until they leave.”


“…And when you see a lilac bush in someone’s yard, you stop and cut off several and you drive away quickly.”


On their debut album with the five-man group, The Great Lakes Myth Society, James and Timothy turn their stolen moments of Great Lakes beauty into songs about the region’s culture, history and nature.


(Sound of song)


“When the cold stars work overtime to impress you, and the Northern Lights rise up from the coral, And your bed is on your back…”


But while many of James and Timothy’s songs for the Great Lakes Myth Society are full of awe for Great Lakes nature, the songs don’t include any overt environmental messages. James says that’s intentional.


“I’m not a big fan of musical political statements. I think it’s extremely narcissistic to me to use your music as a platform unless you’re out there doing something behind it.”


James and Timothy say they prefer a more subtle approach.


“It’s always good to come up from behind people and imply.”


“We whisper in their ears.”


“Yes we do.”


So he and his brother often use personal experiences to draw the environmental connections. Like this song James wrote about his college days at Central Michigan University. It’s called “Isabella County, 1992” On the surface, the song has nothing to do with the environment.


“And it’s an Indian summer, and the tap water’s brown sand ‘cause the lamprey are crammed ‘neath the Chippewa dam.”


But in a song that’s essentially about the drinking scene at a state university, James includes a line about how sea lamprey affect the tributaries that drain into the Great Lakes.


“I think I may be the only person who ever used a sea lamprey dramatically in a piece.”


“I think you’re right.”


James says he worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for a summer cleaning fish traps at the Chippewa dam in central Michigan.


“We would just get up early, get some donuts, pull up the traps, pull out three hundred crawdads, count weird riverfish like chubs. I liked the horny head chub a lot. That was my – and the Texas hogsucker. You learn a lot about your state when you know all the names of the fish that come through.”


And if James is about the gritty, sometimes overlooked details of Great Lakes nature, Timothy is more about the beauty of the area. He’s more likely to write songs about the northern night sky.


“‘Neath a radio of stars, on every band unravel cars. In the distance, Old St. Ignace, beneath a radio of stars.”


“Across the Bridge” is Timothy’s love song to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.


“We played a Chicago show directly after 9/11, like a couple days after. Like so many people, we were almost frightened going into a large city. I’d been writing about the U.P. and it kind of occurred to me that that was about the safest place, you know. Sort of in the event of a hurricane, you’d go to your cellar, I’d go to the U.P. in case anything bad was going down.”


Timothy says he just felt safer up north, where society and sprawl have yet to take over. He says it’s one of the few places he and his brother can still go to simply appreciate the Great Lakes – not to be advocates or fight for a cause, but to recognize and appreciate the nature that surrounds them. A place where the only intrusion from the civilized world is the music playing in their headphones.


For the GLRC, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links

Farmers Upset With Opportunistic Cranes

  • Environmentalists are happy to see that sandhill crane populations are increasing. Some farmers, however, are not. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

At this time of year, one of the nation’s most exotic birds is nesting, and many wildlife lovers are rejoicing. Once close to extinction, the Eastern population of sandhill cranes has grown dramatically. In fact, their numbers are so big that they’re becoming a problem in some places – and there’s talk of starting a hunting season for cranes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sandy Hausman has the story:

Transcript

At this time of year, one of the nation’s most exotic
birds is nesting, and many wildlife lovers are rejoicing. Once
close to extinction, the Eastern population of sandhill cranes
has grown dramatically. In fact, their numbers are so big that
they’re becoming a problem in some places – and there’s talk of
starting a hunting season for cranes. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Sandy Hausman has the story:


(Sound of marsh and birds)


It’s a cool spring morning, just before dawn. Brandon Krueger is watching a stretch of marshland along a country road in Central Wisconsin. Krueger works for the International Crane Foundation. He’s taking part in the annual Midwest crane count. Celebrating its thirtieth year, thousands of volunteers have fanned out across parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa to look and listen for sandhill cranes.


“It’s a great sound to hear when you’re waking up. This is usually the earliest that I ever get up during the year. It’s a real struggle, but it can be worth it – for some of the things that you hear and the opportunity to see cranes.”


(Sound of crane call)


Krueger hears a breeding pair a half a mile away – exchanging what’s known as a unison call. The birds are big – up to five feet tall. A hundred years ago they made easy targets for hunters. In the 1930’s, naturalist Aldo Leopold lamented the loss of cranes – nearly hunted to extinction in Wisconsin. He knew of only 25 breeding pairs of sandhills in the state. But the federal government made it illegal to hunt cranes, and the state started working to restore bird habitat. Today, crane lovers celebrate an impressive comeback.


“I’ve talked with our leading field ecologist and he’s estimated upwards of forty-thousand sandhill cranes in the Midwest area.”


This year’s crane count is still being tallied, but Krueger heard nine birds and saw three flying by.


(Sound of cranes)


In the county next door, Troy Bartz claims to see many more birds than that on a daily basis.


“I’ll come home and it’s nothing for me to see two, three-hundred cranes in a field in one crack.”


Bartz has been farming for 13 years – growing corn, soy beans and alfalfa on nearly a hundred acres near Nina Creek.


(Sound of plow)


“Plants started disappearing out of the field with crane tracks right next to them. They go right down the row and they pull the shoots out of the ground and eat the kernels off the roots. I lose thousands of plants every year.”


The International Crane Foundation says damage in Wisconsin alone could total $100 million, and for family farmers, a year’s profit could be lost.


Bartz: “On the small acreage that I’m tilling, you can’t lose thousands of plants and not have some kind of an impact. That’s hundreds and hundreds of bushels I’m losing.”


Hausman: “And what’s the cash value on that?”


Bartz: “I figure anywhere between two to three-thousand dollars minimum every year.”


Hausman: “So what do you think the answer is?”


Bartz: “Shoot ‘em.”


Hausman: “Really?”


Bartz: “Yeah!”


There is some talk of having a hunting season for cranes, but that would require approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and many critics say the eastern population of sandhills is too small to permit hunting. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says there are alternatives for farmers – machines called banger guns that make explosive sounds every few minutes. Troy Bartz’ neighbor, Mel Johnson, tried that, but found the birds quickly got used to the noise.


“The DNR warden brought the guns out. He said the best way is to mix a few regular shells in with it, he said, because it won’t scare ‘em away, the guns. He’s been taking them out for years, and he said they won’t scare any wildlife away – them guns.”


They’ve also tried scarecrows and colored ribbons but they didn’t work either. Farmers have had success with a product called Kernel Guard – a pesticide that made corn seeds taste bad to cranes, but this year the manufacturer stopped making it because one of its active ingredients can be toxic. Crane advocates are now asking the EPA to allow use of another chemical that’s already sprayed on golf courses to repel geese, but approval is not expected this year.


(Sound of cranes)


So crane lovers are keeping their fingers crossed – hoping farmers won’t be breaking the law by shooting the birds.


For the GLRC, I’m Sandy Hausman.

Related Links

Crafting a House From Scrap Lumber

  • Kelvin Potter on the third floor of the house he's building with scrap lumber. (Photo by Chris McCarus)

One man and a few of his friends are using some old-fashioned methods and some cutting edge techniques to build an environmentally friendly house. The builders are also using a lot of material that other people would throw away. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

One man and a few of his friends are using some old-fashioned methods
and some cutting edge techniques to build an environmentally-friendly house.
The builders are also using a lot of material that other people would throw
away. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:


Four men are raising a timber frame house on an old farm
in central Michigan. Several feet up in the air, they’re piecing together
some beams, 12 feet long and 12 inches thick with some help from a small
crane.


(Sound of engine)


“Cable it! Cable it! Cable it? Yes!”


(Sound of tool dropping)


The framing is like assembling giant Lincoln Log toys. Neighbor Nick
Van Frankenhuyzen is holding a rope attached to some beams.


“Look at that. Look at how far that is extended. We lifted one of
those beams yesterday by hand and they’re not light. Now this wall has to
come back. This has to pop out again to make that one fit and I don’t
know how that’s gonna happen.”


Facing these kinds of challenges is what people in the green building
movement seem to relish. Kelvin Potter owns this farm. He’s using materials
that most builders overlook.


Potter: “Yeah we saved all these timbers, developers were burning all these.
So. These were all going up in smoke. And some of these logs came off my
neighbor’s property. They had died and were standing. We dragged ’em over here. He planted them. He’s
standing right there.”


Van Frankenhuyzen: “Yeah we’re standing on them. And then Kelvin
said I sure could use them. Because they’re the right size. Go get ’em. So he did. And here they are. Can’t believe it. Much better than firewood.”


Kelvin Potter’s home is one example of a growing trend in green building.
The U.S. Green Building Council includes 4000 member organizations. It’s
created standards for protecting the environment. The standards include
reusing material when it’s possible, using solar and wind energy, renewable
resources, and non-traditional materials. Sometimes from surprising
places.


(Sound of truck)


A city truck dumps wood chips onto a municipal lot. On other days it
dumps logs like sugar maple, oak and pine. The trees came from routine
maintenance of parks, cemeteries and streets.
Kelvin Potter is also here, checking for any fresh deliveries. While other
guys come here to cut the logs with chainsaws for firewood, Potter says he
makes better use of it as flooring or trim. Even saw mills don’t take advantage of this kind of wood. That’s because
trees cut down in backyards often mean trouble for the mills.


“Sawmills typically aren’t interested in this material because there is
hardware, nuts, bolts, nails, clothes lines, all sorts of different things
people have pounded into them by their houses. ”


Potter says sawmills use big machines with expensive blades that get
destroyed. So THEY throw the logs away. Potter instead keeps the logs and
throws away his blades. He uses cheap ones, making it worth the risk.
When it’s finished, Kelvin Potter will have an environmentally friendly
house, even if it doesn’t meet all the criteria to be certified as a “green
building.”


Maggie Fields works for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
She says there are many ways to build green. Anything that helps the
environment is a big improvement on the status quo.


“Every material that we reuse is a material that doesn’t have to be cut
from the woods, if that’s where it’s coming from, or remanufactured. And that means that the pollution that’s associated with that material getting
to that use state isn’t having to be created. So, it doesn’t matter if they
get the green seal. If they’re taking steps along that that’s great.”


(Sound of climbing ladder)


Kelvin Potter is climbing a ladder to the belfry of his new house. He
shows off his shiny steel roof, the kind now covering barns. He compares it
to asphalt shingles.


“It lasts 100 years versus 15, 20 years. We actually fill a lot of landfills with shingles. They don’t compress. They don’t decompose. Steel will
go right back into making more roofing or cars or what not. It’s a win-win
situation. It’s a lot cheaper all around and I can’t see why it’s not a lot
more popular.”


The point Potter and other green builders are trying to make is, good
building material isn’t just the stuff marketed at lumberyards. They say, “Look around. You might be surprised what you can use.”


For the GLRC, I’m Chris McCarus.

Related Links

Migrating Whooping Cranes Get Lost

Eight whooping cranes trying to migrate to their summer home in Wisconsin are now stuck in Michigan. The birds are part of a flock of 36 that have all been hatched in captivity. They’re taught to migrate to Florida in the fall following an ultra-light aircraft. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette reports:

Transcript

Eight whooping cranes trying to migrate to their summer home in
Wisconsin are now stuck in Michigan. The birds are part of a flock of 36
that have all been hatched in captivity. They’re taught to migrate to
Florida in the fall following an ultra-light aircraft. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Peter Payette reports:


The lost whooping cranes are the newest members of the flock. They
were returning from Florida for the first time. Wildlife officials say the
birds were scared by people in North Carolina who came too close. The
cranes took off, flew at night and got off course.


Now they’re on the wrong side of Lake Michigan and won’t fly over it.


Joan Garland, with the International Crane Foundation, says the cranes
could summer in Michigan and hopefully return to Wisconsin during their
spring migration next year.


“We had a bird for instance, last year, from the 2002 flock that ended up
all summer in Northern Illinois and so we were watching her to see if she was
going to go back to northern Illinois or Wisconsin… it turned out this year,
she did come back to Wisconsin.”


Garland believes the twenty other cranes in the flock made it back to
Wisconsin. There are less than 500 hundred whooping cranes in North America.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Peter Payette.

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Whooping Cranes Safely Complete Migration

Sixteen endangered whooping cranes that left the Midwest this fall have safely made it to a wildlife refuge in Florida. The birds are part of a reintroduction experiment. And this is the first time that all the cranes made the trip safely. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Sixteen endangered whooping cranes that left the Midwest this fall have
safely made it to a wildlife refuge in Florida. The birds are part of a
re-introduction experiment. And this is the first time that all the cranes
made the trip safely. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach
reports:


For three years, the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership has been using
ultralight aircraft to lead young whoopers from Wisconsin to Florida. A bird
died during each of the previous migrations. This year no bird had to be
euthanized , although one injured crane made the first part of the trip in a
van.


Heather Ray is with Operation Migration, one of several groups working
together to create the only migrating flock of whooping cranes in the
eastern U.S. Ray is very happy about the latest developments.


“I mean, we’re ecstatic that every bird made the flight. You know, every bird
is priceless, as far as we’re concerned, and we’re always saddened when we
lose one.”


Almost all the cranes that completed the two previous years of migrations
have joined the newest group at the Florida refuge. There are now
thirty-six cranes on site. The recovery project’s goal is a flock of 125
migrating birds by the year 2020, including 25 nesting pairs.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Whoopers Make Spring Migration

A test flock of whooping cranes is winging its way north from Florida to Wisconsin this month. That makes wildlife officials who are trying to restore the flock very happy. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

A test flock of whooping cranes is winging its way north from Florida to Wisconsin this month.
That makes wildlife officials who are trying to restore the flock very happy. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership is setting up the only migrating flock of whoopers in
the Eastern U.S. Almost two dozen birds are taking part and wildlife officials hope to teach
flying skills to another 20 crane chicks this summer.


Beth Goodman is whooping crane coordinator at the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources. She says the numbers show the experiment is on track.


“It underscores we set a goal that seems reasonable, and our goal is establishing 25 breeder pairs
and 125 migrating birds in the eastern migratory flock by the year 2020.”


The whooper was at its greatest danger of extinction sixty years ago when there were only 15
birds counted in the wild. The new flock already has exceeded that number. Goodman says one
of the tougher tasks this year will be raising enough private money to keep the project going
strong.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Chuck Quirmbach in Milwaukee.

Safer Winter Home for Whooping Cranes?

The small flock of whooping cranes being reintroduced in the eastern U.S. may have a safer time at their winter home in Florida this year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach explains:

Transcript

The small flock of whooping cranes being reintroduced in the eastern U.S. may have a safer time
at their winter home in Florida this year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach
explains:


Last year, bobcats killed two of the migrating whooping cranes that were staying at the
Chassahowitzka wildlife refuge in Florida.


The cranes like to roost in a certain amount of water, but when the tide level inside their pen
wasn’t right, the birds went to an unprotected area and the bobcats attacked. This year, refuge
managers have taken steps to help the 20 or so cranes roost inside their pens.


Whooping crane Eastern partnership spokesperson, Heather Ray, says many tons of oyster shells
have been dumped into a protected area where the tide flows in and out.


“As the tide goes out, the birds can, you know, move down on this oyster bed and still be in water
and as it comes in move up on it and still be in water, so they will hear predators approaching.”


It took about 300 helicopter loads to build the oyster reef. The whooping cranes will stay in
Florida until February or March, then are expected to head back toward Wisconsin.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach reporting.